Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!westmark!mole-end!mat
From: mat@mole-end.UUCP (Mark A Terribile)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: const member functions: why bother the programmer?
Message-ID: <421@mole-end.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jul 90 06:57:19 GMT
References: <2026@kulcs.kulcs.uucp>
Organization: mole-end--private system.  admin: mole-end!newtnews
Lines: 22

In article <2026@kulcs.kulcs.uucp>, herman@kulcs.uucp (Herman Moons) writes:
> Why does the C++ language demand that the programmer states which 
> member functions are const ??  This seems a job for the compiler, not
> for the programmer (after all, the compiler checks whether a function is
> really const if we specify it that way).
 
> What really bothers me about const member functions is that one must provide
> the compiler with information that he already knows.  
> Any opinions on this topic ??


Only that the programmer can write overloads based on the const-ness,
and that this is sometimes a desirable thing to do.

I'm not entirely happy with the meaning of  const  as applied to class
types, since there is the (by now) too-often repeated question of whether
the const shoud indicate that the object in memory is const or that the
``thing'' which it represents is const.  No, I don't know the answer.
-- 

 (This man's opinions are his own.)
 From mole-end				Mark Terribile